Money Saving News for October 2009
- Home contents insurance claims up with daylight savings end - 20th October, 2009
The end of daylight savings time brings more claims on home contents insurance policies, according to Halifax.
The company has seen an average 8.5 per cent rise in home contents insurance claims due to the longer nights in the winter over the past few years and with clocks going back at 2:00 [02:00] BST next Sunday morning (October 25th), it is warning households to be vigilant... - Expert offers postal consumer rights advice - 19th October, 2009
With Royal Mail staff planning a mass national strike this week, one expert has offered some consumer rights advice to those needing to send letters and parcels in the near future.
According to the BBC, Royal Mail's Special Delivery service is normally unaffected by strikes such as the one taking place this Thursday and Friday (October 22nd to 23rd) and it advises individuals with important letters to use it... - Post Office enters home mortgage market - 19th October, 2009
The Post Office is set to increase competition in the home mortgage market by launching a tracker deal to rival major lenders.
The loan tracks the Bank of England base rate plus 3.09 per cent, which means customers can take advantage of the current low-interest environment with a total rate of 3.59 per cent... - Nationwide offers home mortgage discounts - 16th October, 2009
First-time buyers looking to get onto the property ladder have received some help from mortgage lender Nationwide, which has introduced fee reductions and rate cuts across many of its products.
Customers taking out a three, four or five-year fixed-rate mortgage or a three-year tracker deal from today (October 16th) will be offered a £500 discount off the reservation fee... - Boris Johnson to end cheap rail travel? - 16th October, 2009
Cheap rail travel may be coming to an end if the Mayor of London's plans to introduce up to 20 per cent price hikes on transport fares in the city go ahead.
Boris Johnson announced yesterday (October 15th) that journeys on the London Underground will cost 3.9 per cent more - meaning that a zone 1 pay-as-you-go fare with an Oyster card will rise from £1.60 to £1.80... - OFT to crack down on misleading cheap bargain deals - 15th October, 2009
Retailers who advertise cheap bargain deals on the internet and the high street, only to add further costs later on, are being investigated by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).
The consumer watchdog is to look at techniques such as 'drip pricing', which involves advertising a low price or discount on the front page of a website or in the windows of a store, then adding costs in one or more of the following stages of a transaction... - Capital One goes easy on consumers with low credit scores - 15th October, 2009
While the recession has caused many credit card companies to tighten their criteria for lending, Capital One has introduced a new card designed for those with middling credit ratings.
The Capital One Progress credit card is open to those who have suffered rejected applications in the past, offering an initial rate of 34.9 per cent which drops five per cent every six months for "good behaviour"... - First direct offers fee-free home mortgages - 14th October, 2009
HSBC subsidiary First Direct has unveiled two new home mortgages which do not require any upfront fees - something which may interest first-time buyers looking to purchase a home.
Both home mortgages allow customers to link up the loans with a savings account in order to offset the costs of repayments and reduce outgoings in the difficult economic climate.
The first deal is a tracker mortgage which has an interest rate of 2.49 per cent plus the Bank of England base rate, currently at 0.5 per cent, and requires a deposit of 40 per cent... - Be Broadband offers cheap bargain deals on online storage - 14th October, 2009
Homeowners who receive high speed internet services from Be Broadband will be able to set up a 'virtual hard-drive' on the internet to store precious files at a low cost thanks to a collaboration between the firm and Livedrive.
Both new and existing customers can now take up the cheap bargain deal, which allows Be Broadband users to get a 35 per cent discount on any of Livedrive's online storage facilities... - Consumers unhappy with Npower utility bills - 13th October, 2009
A new poll has found that consumers are unhappy with the service Npower is providing when they look at their utility bills.
Financial advice website uSwitch.com conducted the survey to find out which energy supplier has the most satisfied customers and the Swindon-based firm came bottom of the list for the second year running...